Off the Hook
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl, short. S2, Ep4 "Cherokee Rose." Rick was letting Daryl "off the hook," but Daryl didn't believe he'd ever been on it.


**AN: This is in a series of "shorts" that I'm doing for entertainment value as I rewatch some episodes. Some of them are interpretations/rewrites of scenes that are in each episode. Some are scenes that never happened but could have in "imagination land". They aren't meant to be taken seriously and they aren't meant to be mind-blowing fic. They're just for entertainment value and allowing me to stretch my proverbial writing muscles. If you find any enjoyment in them at all, then I'm glad. If you don't, I apologize for wasting your time. They're "shorts" or "drabbles" or whatever you want to call them so I'm not worrying with how long they are. Some will be shorter, some will be longer.**

 **This one is partially from the show and partially of my own creation/embellishment.**

 **I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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 _Off the hook_.

He didn't owe them anything. He could just stop. He could give up looking for the girl because now they had a base and they were going to organize some search parties and get started soon. As soon as they started, too, they were sure to find the girl and that meant that Daryl could stop looking on his own and join one of their well-organized groups.

Watching them, Daryl wondered if it was a police thing. Admittedly, he'd only ever known law enforcement from the "other side". He'd always been the one worried about going to jail or worried about bailing out somebody that had already been hauled in. Daryl had never seen the so-called inner-workings of the men in blue. What he'd seen lately, though, was starting to make him lose any confidence that he might have ever had in the police.

They were meant to serve and protect. They ran into hopeless situations and brought people out of them. They lived to serve others and they did so happily. They died in the line of duty.

 _That's what he always thought._

Daryl might not have always liked cops, but he respected them. He figured there was a lot of pressure with the job and he doubted it was one that he could do. He didn't know if he could put his ass on the line every day for someone else. Someone he didn't know at all. Someone who might not even deserve it.

But Sophia was just a skinny, scared little girl. Surely she deserved it if any of them did. She deserved to be protected. She deserved to be taken care of.

Yet Rick had left her in the woods and their efforts to "search" for her seemed to include a lot more standing around and talking about searching than they did actual searching.

 _Why do today what you could put off until tomorrow?_

It didn't seem to matter that a kid's life was on the line—as long as the kid wasn't Carl.

It didn't make Daryl comfortable and it didn't inspire the greatest confidence in him. He feared their so-called search parties, when they finally got around to organizing them and sending them out, would do the same amount of nothing. He'd rather just go and find Sophia himself so she could have a shot at getting a hot meal before long.

"Better on my own," Daryl told Rick.

Daryl preferred being on his own to ending up babysitting other people who were, theoretically, full grown adults. On his own, he might actually find her because he could make decisions and act on them without having to call a meeting every time.

 _He didn't owe them anything._

Like he was doing this with any expectation of payment. Like he was doing this because he had a debt to work off. It was the end of the world, as far as Daryl could see. He considered all his debts to be paid.

He was doing this out of choice, not obligation. He was doing this for a little girl. He was doing it for one of the few good mothers left in the world that was crying herself to sleep at night because her daughter was gone—in the woods somewhere—in a world where grown ass men were pissing their pants on a regular basis. Maybe, in some ways, he was doing it for himself. What he did know, though, was that he wasn't doing it for Rick or "the group" and he certainly wasn't doing it for any debt that he owed.

He was doing it because somebody needed to do it and, from what he could see, others were falling short of the mark. But he didn't tell Rick that.

"My other plans fell through," Daryl called to Rick, in response to his _pardon_ , as he continued on his way to pick back up on his search.


End file.
